February 20, 2013

While close to 50 percent of wives and husbands report being very happily married, both spouses are 6 percentage points less likely to report a “very happy” marriage when the wife earns more. They’re 8 percentage points more likely to report marital troubles in the past year and 6 percentage points more likely to have discussed separating in the past year.

A woman outearning her husband could even doom the marriage, as the researchers report this “increases the likelihood of divorce by 50 percent.”

Read the whole thing. So is this just a cultural thing, or is it a hardwired tendency for female hypergamy?